The turians call them cabals A Mass Effect Story
by R-I-C-A-R-D
Summary: Prior to the Reaper invasion, the Alliance military orders the formation of a unit composed entirely of biotic soldiers. Because anything the turians do, humanity can do better. Or can they? Join Johnny Bravo, Corporal Sinclair and the overly enthusiastic "Everything is Awesome" O'Hare as their long-suffering lieutenant attempts to keep them all alive for just one more mission...
1. Chapter 1

**One**

 **Systems Alliance Marine HQ, Earth**

"The turians call them _cabals_ ," the Alliance captain informed the officers seated around the conference room table.

At mere mention of the word _turians_ , the older officers, generals who'd fought against the aliens during the First Contact War muttered to each other. "Damn turians," Major General St Clare said, banging his fist on the polished mahogany table for emphasis. The rest nodded.

The officer making the presentation fought his own private war, barely keeping an eye roll in check. _Geez,_ he thought to himself, _the war was thirty years ago. Build a bridge, buddy!_ Aloud he said. "Indeed, sir. But as you yourself know, the turian military does nothing without a very good reason."

The generals couldn't figure out if the younger officer was yanking their chain or not but he did have a point. If wiser heads – and the asari – hadn't prevailed, Earth would likely be under turian rule.

The speaker, Captain Connors, tapped a control on his wrist-mounted omni-tool and combat footage of biotic soldiers from the Systems Alliance Marine Corps flickered on the boardroom wall.

In the footage, the soldiers were in the midst of a fire-fight with batarian slavers.

"Observe how the soldier on the right employs a singularity to sweep these three hostiles into the air." On screen, the three aliens flew upwards, limbs flailing wildly and became entangled with each other.

The officer paused the footage.

"Now, the marine on the left unloads a warp field into the singularity and...well watch."

The captain resumed playback. For a brief instant the screen flared blue-white as the biotic fields intersected and clashed. Then the batarians were nothing more than a few scattered body parts and a great deal of blood.

"Good lord," one of the generals breathed.

"They're freaks!" St Clare said, again banging the desk for emphasis. Connors assumed he was referring to the biotic soldiers, not the four-eyed batarians.

"Perhaps, general," he replied. "But they're _our_ freaks. And that was just _two_ of them. Imagine an entire unit of biotic soldiers working together. _That's_ why the turians deploy them in such units."

"And to keep tabs on them as well?" Another general ventured. The rest nodded.

St Clare stood, signalling an end to the presentation. "Thank you for your input, Captain. We'll discuss the implications and get back to you within the week."

Of course, the Systems Alliance being a bloated bureaucracy, within the week became three months later.

* * *

PFC Johnny Bravo swaggered down the hallway of Marine HQ in the United States, smiling to himself. Standing at over six feet four inches and possessing an incredibly honed physique, he believed himself to be catnip to the female of every species in Council Space and conducted himself accordingly.

"Hey sweetheart," he greeted the young woman sitting at the reception desk at HQ's Biotics Division building. "What's shaking?"

The receptionist gave Johnny a withering stare. "Excuse me?" she replied icily. The temperature on a digital readout behind her dropped by two degrees as she spoke.

Unfazed, Johnny came to attention and said, "Private Bravo reporting! I'm here to meet Captain Connors."

The receptionist flicked a glance at the captain's calendar open on her monitor. This jar-head was a biotic? She inclined her head in the direction of the seats in the waiting area. "Take a seat. The captain will be a few minutes."

Corporal Mary-Beth Sinclair wasn't enjoying a good start to her day. Her unit's chief medical officer had prescribed a sleeping pill to deal with chronic insomnia and of course, today of all days, instead of snapping to full wakefulness at oh dark thirty as she usually did, she'd overslept and had to rush from her quarters lacking either breakfast or a shower.

 _Nicely done, Mary-Beth_ the snide internal voice she'd been fighting for years to eradicate spoke up. The CMO was of the opinion that a large part of Mary-Beth's problems stemmed from the fact she was an over achiever and highly strung. Privately the medical officer believed the young woman was overdue for a nervous breakdown.

As she double-timed down the hallway, snapping off salutes to every superior officer in passing, Mary-Beth attempted to at least straighten her regulation length dark hair and smooth out the wrinkles in her uniform. _Way to make a first impression_ the voice in her head observed. _Out-standing._

"Shut up," she muttered to herself as she reached Captain Connors' office. "Just _shut up!"_ This last was delivered at a louder volume than intended and both Johnny Bravo and the receptionist looked up as she entered the room. Mary-Beth felt herself blush. Out-standing.

Johnny looked the newcomer up and down as she hustled to the receptionist. Fairly tall, not bad looking, looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. He could relate. Cute nose. If he had to guess, he'd say her blood pressure was currently approaching the levels at which one might stroke out.

A small part of Johnny hoped the girl _would_ collapse – he might be able to impress the receptionist if he successfully performed CPR on a fellow marine.

Instead the young woman, the chevrons on the sleeve of her uniform blouse denoting the rank of corporal, visibly collected herself and stood at attention. "Corporal Sinclair to see Captain Connors."

The receptionist nodded in the direction of the chairs in the outer office.

Johnny smiled and nodded as Corporal Sinclair sat beside him. He noticed her fingernails were non-existent beyond her fingertips; she began gnawing on her lower lip.

"Kinda feels like being called up to the principal's office, huh?" Johnny said.

The corporal looked at him blankly and went back to gnawing her lip. Johnny sighed. What was _with_ women today?

Connors sat behind the desk inside his office. He hoped the brass weren't thinking of rearranging the office spaces again; the desk, a relic from the Second World War had barely fit through the doorway.

Stacked neatly to one side of the desk were a dozen data pads, each storing the full career history of a biotic company candidate. One of the candidates, Kimberley Carter had recently graduated from Officer Candidate School and wore lieutenants' bars on her uniform blouse.

The file spoke highly of her leadership abilities and Connors was surprised Carter hadn't already been promoted to lead her own platoon. It was a trend he was noticing – Alliance Command weren't sure quite _what_ to do with biotic soldiers and usually assigned them make-work assignments.

To Connors, it made no sense. A common soldier represented months of basic training, then yet more training depending on what specialist roles they were best suited to. Biotics took even longer to train, each one costing the Alliance hundreds of thousands of credits by the time they were ready for active duty.

And here a perfectly capable young woman sat before him, a platoon leader without a platoon and all because she had an interface for a biotic amplifier implanted in the base of her skull.

Connors had already decided to offer her the position as his second in command and team leader when his troops were planet-side. "Lieutenant Carter, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to what I can only hope is the Alliance Marine Corps' first Biotic Company."

Kimberley stood and snapped to quivering attention. "It's an honour and privilege, sir!"

Connors smiled, returning her salute. "At ease, Carter. While I like your enthusiasm, I like to ease up on the formalities. So long as everybody performs their duties, we'll all get along fine." He paused. "I ought to make that the boilerplate speech for the rest of the unit."

Kimberley nodded and resumed her seat. "What's first, sir?"

Connors passed her half the stack of files. "Start going through these. You're heading Alpha Squad. I need two more squad leaders out of that pile."

"Roger that."

* * *

Johnny Bravo had never intended to join the military. Possessed of the body of a Greek god and the smarts of the average fifth grader, Johnny was the darling of his high school football team. Also the soccer, baseball and basketball teams. By the time he was thinking of applying for college, he was fielding offers from several major league teams and a scholarship from a prestigious sporting academy. Then he met Amber Scott. Amber was tall, drop-dead gorgeous and scored highly enough on standardised tests to qualify for Mensa. Her only flaw was a weakness for Johnny's movie-star good looks and chiselled abs.

The pair began dating casually during their final year at high school and while she was aware Johnny was sleeping around with half the football team's cheer squad, she was sure he'd eventually realise she was the best thing he had going for him and settle down with her permanently.

Borderline genius or no, Amber didn't realise how averse to settling a boy like Johnny was and, upon telling him she loved him, he panicked and, possessing all the emotional intelligence of a brick, ran screaming for the nearest Alliance recruiting station.

The sergeant at the front desk looked up at the tall young man. "Why do you want to enlist, son?"

It was a standard question. Over the years, the recruiters had heard most every answer. The most common were, in no particular order, "I got a girl pregnant" "My pappy and his pappy done served and now it's my turn." and "The judge gave me a choice, a prison term or the Marines."

Johnny cast a nervous look over his shoulder, afraid Amber was still chasing him. For a girl, she was damn fast. "A girl told me she loved me," Johnny said.

The sergeant nodded. "That'll do it."

* * *

Mary-Beth came from a long line of over-achievers. Her mother was head of a multinational conglomerate with offices in thirty countries on Earth and was branching out into Council space. Her father was a surgeon who'd pioneered new ways of treating cancers that didn't involve heavy duty chemotherapy drugs and one's hair falling out.

Her grandparents from both sides of the family were _also_ successful business owners as were sundry other aunts, uncles and cousins. As the oldest of three children, there was an unspoken expectation that Mary-Beth too would form her own company before she was eighteen and be a multi-millionaire by the time she was twenty-one.

Unfortunately a lifetime spent attempting to live up to family expectations turned Mary-Beth into a twitchy bundle of neuroses and instead, she joined the Marines. Her parents lost their minds. Literally in the case of her father who spent several months in an institution. Her younger siblings were delighted – the fact their older sister had so embarrassed the family meant they could get away with murder.

Upon recovering most of his marbles, her father begged her to consider a career in medicine. Eventually, they came to a compromise: after enlistment and the completion of basic training, she trained in battlefield surgery.

Mostly, this involved spraying copious amounts of medigel on gunshot wounds and hoping the patient would survive the medevac. On balance, Mary-Beth saved more lives than she lost.

Sitting in the wating room, Johnny again tried engaging the corporal in conversation. She ignored him, hunched forward in her seat, muttering _just breathe_ over and over to herself. At some point she'd stopped gnawing her lip and started in on a much-abused thumb nail.

Both soldiers looked up as the captain's office door slid open and a woman wearing lieutenant's bars walked out. Both Marines shot to their feet and saluted. "At ease," she replied.

She glanced at a datapad held in one hand then nodded at Johnny. "The captain will see you now."

The receptionist scowled at the officer. "That's _my_ line," she muttered as Johnny filed past.

Connors shook heads with Johnny across the expanse of his desk, quietly marvelling at the fact the private was even alive. The Alliance had trained him in close-assault tactics, using a biotic charge to launch himself at distant opponents, disabling them and leaving them open to devastating shotgun attacks.

That was the theory. In practice, such tactics pulled a Marine away from the support of his squad mates and often left him exposed, surrounded and caught in a crossfire from multiple angles. Many 'vanguards' as they were nicknamed opted to retrain in the use of tech armour, bolstering their defences. The rest usually died in combat.

Through some combination of tactical finesse and dumb luck, Johnny was still alive. Connors decided to pair him with Corporal Sinclair, hoping the latter's experience as a combat medic would keep the former alive long enough to draw a pension.

Connors quickly outlined the situation. "The brass have authorised on a trial basis the formation of a unit composed entirely of biotic soldiers."

"No kidding?"

Connors nodded. "No kidding."  
"Huh. Well I was getting bored standing guard over the office supplies cabinet all day."

By the time Connors called Mary-Beth into his office, she was quietly freaking out and half-convinced she as about to receive a dishonourable discharge, court martial for some unknown infraction or both.

When the captain told her about the new biotic unit, the dial on her emotional thermostat clicked over to 'paranoia.'

Mary-Beth sat in the visitor's chair, arms folded across her chest. "This is one of those Alliance black ops units, isn't it? The kind where, if we're caught behind enemy lines, they disavow any knowledge of us?"

Connors blinked. "No. This is strictly above-board."  
Mary-Beth snorted in disbelief. "So, you want us to believe that after years of assigning us crap assignments, the brass have finally realised biotics are actually useful?"

"In a nutshell, yes."

Mary-Beth gnawed her lip, listened to chatter inside her head. If the Alliance docs knew about the internal voices, she'd receive a medical discharge on the spot. It wasn't like the voices urged her to kill or commit random acts of violence. Usually it was, "I have a bad feeling about this" and "That guy's looking at you funny."

This time it was, "Accept the offer. You could use the combat pay."

* * *

After an intense two days of interviews, Captain Connors had his three squads finalised. He sat back in his chair and looked over the order of battle:

 **Alpha Squad**

Lt. Kimberley "Kimmers" Carter, Squad leader

Cpl. Mary-Beth "Twitch" Sinclair

PFC Johnny "Casanova" Bravo

Pvt. Barry "Bazza" Macalister

 **Bravo Squad**

Cpl Takeshi "Sensei" Omura, Squad leader

PFC Ludwig von Strudel

Pvt Samantha "Everything is Awesome!" O'Hare

Pvt Padraig "Paddy" O'Malley

 **Charlie Squad**

Cpl Steven "No Relation" Connors, Squad leader.

PFC Raoul "El Diablo" Sanchez

Pvt Ingvar "Swedish Chef" Olafsson

Pvt James "Insert Nickname Here" Roberts.

Connors rose from his desk and keyed his comm, hitting up the unit's general frequency.  
"All squads report to the courtyard in five."

The three newly formed squads assembled in a leafy courtyard shared by the Biotics Division building and a garage for the repairs of combat vehicles. Connors had to shout to make himself heard over the sound of power tools and pneumatic torque wrenches.

"First, I want to extend my congratulations to you all as a whole. You represent the best humanity has to offer." He flinched as something heavy and expensive crashed to the concrete floor inside the garage. An apologetic voice called, "My bad!"

Connors decided to leave the rest of his speech until they were on board the _Shanghai_ , the cruiser the unit was assigned to. "In closing, you are at liberty until 0600 tomorrow morning when you will report at the spaceport. Dismissed."

"Does anybody know a good place to get pissed?" Bazza Macalister asked.  
Private O'Hare answered, "There's this awesome multi-species bar down town."

"How multi-species is it?" Kimmers enquired.  
"The short-order cook's a krogan."  
"This I gotta see," put in Johnny Bravo.

* * *

Jerry's Diner sat beneath a busy flight path. The windows rattled at fifteen minute intervals as transport shuttles departed Earth for the Charon relay. Despite all the noise, the diner was popular due to its unique menu. Varren steaks along with pyjak skewers were hot favourites, prepared using ancient krogan culinary secrets. If asked, the krogan cook would say, "The secret ingredient is love."

Jerry himself sat in his office in back, counting out the monthly protection money. It wasn't like it used to be, he thought morosely. Used to be, a bunch of wiseguys in cheap suits with suspect Italian accents came around to collect.

Then, a volus merchant rolled into town, bought up entire neighbourhoods and had the wiseguys whacked. Now, it was krogan with cheap suits coming to collect. They didn't even bother with the crap accents. Broke his heart.

A salarian doorman lounged by the front entrance as a group of humans in Alliance uniforms approached. The female at the front of the group wore officer's bars. The rest chattered back and forth with all the excitement of children hopped up on too much sugar. Problematic.

The salarian straightened as they neared him. To the officer he said, "Welcome to Jerry's where the food is hot and the waitresses are hotter. Don't cause any trouble, else Grax will tear you apart."

"Who's Grax?" Kimmers asked.  
"The cook. He's totally awesome!" O'Hare replied enthusiastically.

Inside, a volus stood on a stepladder, lining up a shot at the pool table. An asari danced provocatively on a tabletop littered with spent shot glasses and pools of spilled liquor, doing nothing to improve the galaxy's opinion that all asari were dancing hussies.

The troops filed into the diner, making for the bar. Sanchez slapped a hand on the polished wood. "Tequila!"  
Johnny Bravo shook his head, "Way to reinforce those stereotypes, dude."  
"Que?"  
Takeshi Omura joined Sanchez at the bar. He signalled the man polishing glasses. "Sake."  
"Really?" replied Johnny.  
O'Malley: "Guinness!"  
Johnny rolled his eyes. "I give up."  
Macalister pushed in between Omura and Sanchez. "Got any Fourex?"

A busty young woman with a too-tight T-shirt stretched taut across her chest crossed to the kitchen pass-through. "Two varren steaks, three pyjak skewers and two orders of curly fries, stat!"

From the kitchen, a deep voice called out, "Quit busting my hump, woman!"

"Hello, gorgeous," Johnny said as every man's head in the place swivelled to track the young woman's progress across the floor. Lieutenant Carter traded glances with Corporal Sinclair. "Men," they said simultaneously. Mary-Beth eyed the waitress. She looked familiar.

Kimmers and Mary-Beth took seats near the pool table. The volus balanced precariously as the last ball dropped into the corner pocket. "And they said it couldn't be done," he said to nobody in particular.

The busty waitress sashayed to the table, shoulders back, chest out. Her name badge read Mary-Kate. Mary-Beth looked from her chest to her face and back. "Say, you wouldn't be the same Mary-Kate who went to St. Stevens?"

Mary-Kate looked at her. "Mary-Beth? Ohmigod, what are you doing here?" The two women embraced like long-lost sisters.

"Oh to be the fabric of those shirts right now," Johnny Bravo said.

"We're on leave. Shipping out tomorrow," Mary-Beth explained as she sat back down.

"You enlisted?" Mary-Kate asked, eyes round.  
"Yep."  
"Bet your family was thrilled."  
"Yep."  
"You guys ready to order?"  
"Yep."

With that, the tearful reunion was over.

Kimmers eyed Mary-Kate as she took down their orders and headed to the kitchen. At the bar, the men ordered more drinks and devoured the bowls of complimentary peanuts. She turned back to Mary-Beth.  
Mary-Beth caught the look. "Before you ask, no she and I were not girlfriends. She was always the biggest flirt at school."

Kimmers raised an eyebrow. "I was actually wondering what the odds were that you'd both have double-barrelled hyphenated names."

"Oh." Mary-Beth exhaled. "Around the time I was conceived, this craze went around all the expectant mothers. Kinda like the way herpes goes around."  
Kimmers blinked. "Uh huh."  
"This one woman, real posh-totty type announced she was naming her latest bundle of joy Mary-Anne. Being the alpha-female of her social group, to which anybody who was anybody was just _desperate_ to be part of, this announcement influenced the baby-naming decisions for an entire generation of kids." She paused to take a drink of water. "I went to school with a Billy-Bob, Billy-Joe, Tommy-Lee, Mary-Anne, Mary-Jane, Mary-Kate, Sarah-Jane, Sarah-Lee, Sarah-Marie" A pause. Then, "They were triplets. And Sue-Ellen, Rose-Ellen and Ellen-Ellen."

"Ellen-Ellen? Seriously?"  
"Seriously. Last I heard, she was still in therapy."

Mary-Kate arrived at their table bearing plates of food in time to hear this last. "Oh, you didn't know?"  
"Know what?" Mary-Beth asked.  
"Ellen-Ellen went nuts and tried to strangle Mary-Anne's mother. Said it was her fault she had to go through life with such a stupid name."  
"Damn."  
"Yeah. Anyway, here are your orders." As she laid the plates on the tables, she pointedly pressed her breasts firmly into each woman's back.  
Kimmers looked up at her. "Does that actually get you tips?"  
Mary-Kate winked at her. "Like you wouldn't believe, sweetheart."

They looked around as every man in the diner flocked around Mary-Kate, waving credits at her. "See?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The planetoid located in the boondocks of the Attican Traverse was so strategically insignificant, it didn't merit a name, just a string of alpha-numerics. The Systems Alliance and Batarian Hegemony had been fighting over it for decades.

The only reason the batarians wanted it was because humanity was first to claim it, in the earliest years of humanity's exploration of the galaxy, back when explorers were hammering Alliance flag poles into pretty much any piece of real estate they could.

Back on Earth, most were of the view that the batarians could _have_ the damned lump of rock but time and again, the Alliance Navy was mobilised to take it back from the four-eyed aliens. Partly, this was out of childish spite - "I had it first!" Partly, it was due to not wanting to look bad on the annual performance reviews. Even admirals reported to somebody higher up the chain.

The SSV _Shanghai_ dropped from FTL, lighting up sensor arrays and sounding alarms across the base the batarians had established on the potato-shaped planetoid. "Sir!" a batarian sensor operator called out. "Hostile ship inbound!" he swiped at the haptic controls of his console, reading the rapidly streaming data feeds. "Profile is Alliance cruiser."

"Crap." the senior officer noted. Then, "Scramble the fighters. I want that ship out of my sky."

Aboard the _Shanghai_ a sensor operator called out, "Captain, I'm reading multiple fighter launches from the surface. ETA three minutes."

The cruiser's captain sat back in his command seat and began issuing orders. "Gunnery, power up the GARDIAN lasers. Engineering, divert power to our kinetic barriers."

The sensor operator called out an update, "Fighters now within range of our anti-ship batteries."

"Open fire! I want those fighters out of my sky."

On the _Shanghai'_ s flight deck, servicemen ran about, making last minute pre-flight checks to the Kodiak drop shuttle tasked with delivering Connors' team to the surface. The deck thrummed as the anti-ship batteries lit up. Mass accelerator rounds hammered the cruiser's barriers in a murderous hailstorm.

"All right, this is what you've trained for!" Connors shouted as his people sat on the shuttle's bench seats. He nodded at Kimmers. "Good hunting, Lieutenant."

"Ooh-ra, sir!" she shouted back as the hatch slid shut, cutting off her view of the shuttle bay.

The shuttle eased up off the deck, rotated to face the void outside. Visible through the forward view screens was the floating wreckage of destroyed batarian fighters. The shuttle pilot deactivated the inertial dampeners and punched the throttle, throwing the jarhads in back off balance. He smiled at his co-pilot as they cursed and fell to the decking.

"The hell was that?" the marine lieutenant demanded.  
The pilot looked over his shoulder. "Forward momentum. You might want to sit down."  
"Freaking navy pukes," she muttered and sat down.  
"Freaking marine pukes," the co-pilot muttered.  
"How about some music to frag to?" a voice from in back called.

The co-pilot punched up his personal play list: _"What the world needs now, is love, sweet love."_

"Ooops." He worked his controls again and _Ride of the Valkyries_ burst forth.

In the batarian command bunker, the sensor operator reported, "All fighters destroyed."

"Damn it!" The commander punched the wall, breaking most of the bones in his hand. "Arrgh! Medic!"

A batarian medic rolled both sets of eyes and set about resetting and splinting each broken finger. "Most people just kick the nearest slave," he noted.

With his good hand, the batarian commander opened the general frequency. "All units, a hostile shuttle is inbound. I want those pieces of human filth dead! I want their heads on spikes! I want-ow!" he winced as the medic set his middle finger.

"I think they get the idea," the medic said.

"We're taking fire," the co-pilot observed as flak cannons opened up below them. The pilot nodded. "Going evasive."

From the crew compartment, more cursing as the troops crashed into each other. The co-pilot raised his eyebrows. "You think we should turn the inertial dampeners back on?"

"Nah."

Explosions burst around the shuttle, prompting a series of vomit-inducing evasive manoeuvres. Mary-Beth was thrown first into O'Malley and then into Kimmers, her face ending up in the lieutenant's crotch.

A flash of light illuminated the confines of the shuttle as Johnny Bravo took a picture with his omni-tool and uploaded it to InstaTwit. "Bastard!" Mary-Beth and Kimmers exclaimed.

Johnny received high fives from all the men.

The pilot announced from the cockpit. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have reached our destination and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for flying with Alliance Spacelanes!"

"I'm gonna kill him," the LT vowed as the hatch slid open and her battered squad exited the shuttle. She sprinted to the dubious cover of an asteroid impact crater, breath echoing in the confines of her helmet. Behind them, the shuttle throttled up and unassed the area.

"Form up by squad, Alpha on me! Bravo, Charlie, cover our flanks." A chorus of affirmatives sounded in her earpiece. Mary-Beth flung herself to the powdery grey dirt of the planetoid, Johnny and Macalister alongside.

"Alpha, this is Omura. No hostiles on scope."

"This is Charlie," No Relation Connors put in, "We're clear."

"Copy. Alpha squad is moving." Kimmers cautiously raised her head over the lip of the crater and observed the rocky landscape before her. House-sized boulders, craggy mountains stabbing at the sky, the whole thing dotted with impact craters.

In the distance sat the only man made structure – the bunker the original Alliance teams had constructed. Over the years both the Alliance and Hegemony had expanded it, adding barracks, vehicle hangars and, courtesy of the batarians, slave quarters.

Kimmers led her squad in a low crouch, running from cover to cover. "Where are they?" she muttered. She got her answer as Macalister's head exploded, spraying her with blood and pulverised bone.

"SNIPER!" she called over the comm and threw herself behind a boulder. Another shot blew a piece of rock apart. Suddenly, her squad's cover didn't seem so substantial.

"Bravo, Charlie, do you have a visual?"

"Negative," No Relation Connors reported.

In the rearguard position of Bravo squad, Private Samantha O'Hare caught motion in her peripheral vision. "Movement," she spoke quietly, feeling her heart pound. "To my nine o'clock."

She went prone, tracking a batarian as he broke cover. "He's armed with a sniper rifle," she reported.  
"Take him," Kimmers ordered.

Samantha switched her rifle's fire selector to single shot and toggled on the smart targeting VI. "Hello," a digitised voice said cheerfully. "It looks like you're trying to shoot somebody. Would you like assistance?"

" _You're kidding me!"_ Samantha hissed.  
"I am sorry, I did not get that. Would you like assistance?"  
"Yes," she said through gritted teeth.

The VI synced her helmet mounted eye-tracking system to the rifle's smart-targeting module. Samantha's gaze settled on the batarian even as he was lining up his own shot. After a moment, her reticule turned green and she squeezed the trigger.

The sniper fell back, O2 venting from the hole punched through his pressure suit.

Samantha smiled broadly. "Awesome!"

Three quarters of Alpha squad cautiously left cover. Kimmers keyed her comm, "All squads, reinforce your barriers." Even as she spoke, another sniper round collapsed her own biotic barrier, overwhelmed her hardsuit's kinetic barrier and bled the rest of its momentum against her ablative breastplate, blowing out a fist-sized crater.

She staggered, unable to breathe. "Uh!"

"Grab her! I got this," Johnny said and stepped in front of the lieutenant, pushing out his own barrier in a bubble enclosing himself, the lieutenant, and Mary-Beth.

The medic linked her omni-tool with the lieutenant's hardsuit computer, checking her vital signs. Heart rate up, blood pressure up, respiration up. "She's alive!" Mary-Beth called over the general freq.

The squad medic looked down at her lieutenant. "Feels like I got kicked by a horse," Kimmers grunted.

"You've got a couple of broken ribs," Mary-Beth reported, reading the omni-tool readouts as the lieutenant's hardsuit support systems administered painkillers.

"Right," Kimmers gasped, pulling herself up. "Now I'm pissed. All squads, form up on me."

When the rest of her unit arrived, she quickly ordered them to form overlapping, interlocking biotic barriers, covering the unit as a whole. "In ancient Rome, the legionnaires interlocked their shields while advancing on the enemy. Protected them from arrows and spears. They called it the tortoise."

Her troops looked blankly at her. "So I read a book!"

With their lieutenant in the middle, the unit set off in the direction of the compound, taking fire from squads of batarian infantry but dispatching them with rifle fire and devastating biotic explosions.

"Keep those barriers up," Kimmers said. As she spoke, her words appeared to float before her on puffs of purplish light. Curious, she spoke again. "We should be fine so long as they don't deploy a tank." More words rendered in light. She began to think she had a problem.

In the bunker: "Send in the tank."

A heavy wheeled relic of the original Alliance occupation rolled from the vehicle hangar, making for the blue-white bubble of energy crawling towards the base. In front, a driver, crammed together in crew compartment, a dozen shock troops just that day promoted from scrubbing toilets to combat status.

A final soldier sat at the roof-mounted anti-personnel cannon, making machine-gun sounds with his mouth.

"I can't believe they finally gave me a gun!" one of the troops said excitedly.  
"Are you kidding?" said his seat mate, "Those humans are slaughtering us out there! This is a suicide run!"  
"Both of you can it!" their sergeant barked.

"LT, we have a problem," Sanchez observed as the armoured vehicle crested the top of a rocky outcrop and began racing downhill towards them.

Kimmers was too distracted by hallucinatory side-effects of the pain meds to notice. She had become another unwitting victim of Alliance cost cutting.

* * *

 **Alliance R & D Facility, six months earlier**

In a cost-cutting slash and burn exercise, the Alliance military had cancelled its existing contracts with award-winning and expensive pharmaceuticals suppliers and instead turned to its own in-house labs for all combat medicinal needs.

A white-coated lab assistant looked over the latest results from the current batch of subjects. "Doctor, I have some real concerns about the side-effects our volunteers are experiencing."

"What kind of side-effects?" inquired the doctor. He was only technically a doctor, having been banned from practicing medicine in the public sector. In another cost-cutting initiative, the Alliance had hired him anyway.

"We have reports of hallucinations. One of the subjects reported, quote, _I can see the music."  
_ "What music?"  
"Exactly."  
"Tell me, do the new painkillers effectively kill pain?"  
"Most definitely, doctor."  
"Any long term side-effects? Tingling, numbness, abnormal bowel movements?"  
"Uhh...no."  
The doctor nodded. "Excellent. Proceed."

* * *

Kimmers heard faint voices over the comm. "LT? LT?" She was too busy following the colourful swirls, eyes darting left, right, up and down. Her pupils had contracted to pinpricks.

Lacking orders from a superior officer, Johnny Bravo did something he'd swore he'd never do – he took the initiative. "Cover me, I'm going in!"

Before anybody could stop him, Bravo gathered himself and launched across the space between his squad and the oncoming vehicle in a flare of biotic energy, slamming into the side of the personnel carrier.

Before he could think better of it, he grabbed the handholds welded to the side of the APC and clambered up to the roof. The batarian on the gun attempted to swivel the barrels toward the human but the vehicle's own bulk was in the way, and the barrels couldn't swing down far enough.

Operating purely on instinct, adrenaline and a childhood spent watching over the top action vids, Johnny grabbed the gunner, and threw him towards the front of the vehicle. The driver blinked as the gunner suddenly appeared, scrabbling madly for a handhold before falling beneath the front wheels. The personnel carrier jounced on its suspension as it crushed the hapless gunner.

The driver brought APC to a halt and the sergeant ordered the troops out. The troops were somewhat hesitant.  
"Sarge, that human up there will gun us down as soon as we set foot outside."  
"There's _twelve_ of us and only _one_ of him," the sergeant growled. "I'd say the odds are in our favour. Now move!"

Johnny Bravo giggled like a school girl as the batarians piled out of the vehicle. He opened fire, raking the soldiers with a six hundred round a minute hail of 50 calibre rounds.

The driver poked his head out the window. "Is it too late to surrender?"

The rest of the unit arrived to a scene of carnage: bullet riddled bodies lay contorted in the dust along with a piece of road-kill that put Mary-Beth off meat. A survivor knelt on the ground, hands clasped behind his head as Johnny trained his shotgun on him.

"Lieutenant, what should we do with him?"  
Nothing. "Ma'am?"  
"Mary-Beth, I think there's something wrong with the LT," the squad belatedly realised.

The squad medic gently led her superior by the elbow, sat her against the side of the APC. "Lieutenant," she said softly, "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"  
Behind her helmet visor, Kimmers smiled happily. "Mary-Beth, I'm high as a kite."

From behind her the prisoner spoke up. "That won't look good on your report."  
"Don't make me shoot you."

Mary-Beth nodded towards Johnny. "Cover him. If he so much as looks at you funny, shoot him."  
"Hey!" the prisoner objected. "I surrendered! Under the terms of the Alliance Charter, you can't just shoot me!"

Kimmers pulled herself together enough to offer this rejoinder, "Right, and no batarian has _ever_ executed an Alliance soldier after they'd surrendered."

"Um..."

Mary-Beth turned back to her lieutenant and linked her omni-tool with the officer's hardsuit computer. "Ohh..." she said to herself as the readouts flashed up.  
"Ohh, what?" the lieutenant replied.  
"I think it's these new pain meds. Looks like they have some hallucinatory side-effects."  
"No kidding."  
"I can over-ride the emergency medical systems on your armour and reduce the dosage but-"  
"I can take a little pain, Sinclair. I can't effectively lead my unit if I'm whacked out of my mind."

Mary-Beth nodded and manipulated her omni-tool, establishing manual control over the hardsuit's medical settings. Eyeing the lieutenant, she began reducing the dosage. "Tell me when."  
After a few seconds, Kimmers gave a pained gasp. "Hello Kitty!"

Mary-Beth disconnected her omni-tool. "How bad is it?"  
Kimmers spoke through gritted teeth. "Pain is the only way you know you're alive."

After Mary-Beth helped her to her feet, the lieutenant addressed her team. "We still have a job to do. We'll drive the rest of the way to the base." She turned to the batarian, now on his feet, hands cuffed behind his back with plastic restraints. "Get on the comm and tell your superiors the humans are dead."  
"And if I don't?"  
The batarian blinked as the humans aimed weapons and pointed glowing hands in his direction. "You're biotics?"  
"Yeah," "Hai," "Si," "Ja."  
" _All of you?"_

In answer, Johnny poked him in the chest with a biotically-charged finger, throwing him back thirty feet. The LT glared at Johnny. "Go pick him up."

"Ma'am."

Johnny placed a firm hand on the prisoner's shoulder, pressed the shotgun's muzzle into the small of his back and marched him to the cab of the personnel carrier. "I'm gonna undo the restraints so you can work the comm. If you try anything funny," Johnny racked the shotgun, ejecting a thermal clip onto the ground. He picked it up and reloaded. "If you try to escape," again he racked the shotgun. Again the thermal clip flew out. Again he reloaded. "If you try to alert the base that we're coming-"  
Kimmers laid a hand over the shotgun's barrel. "Rack the slide even once more and I'll break your fingers."

Johnny gulped. "Ma'am."

His hands freed, the batarian slowly leaned into the cab and keyed the comm. "Base, this is Asskicker One reporting." He could actually feel the humans' unbelieving stares boring into the back of his head. The comm crackled. "Go ahead, Asskicker One."  
"We engaged the humans and eliminated them, over."  
A pause. "Really?"  
"Yes."  
" _All of them?"_ the disbelieving tone of the inquiry offended the driver.  
"Are you actually implying we're so incompetent we can't even take out a bunch of humans?"  
"Until this morning, you were on latrine duty...so yes."

The batarian cursed and slammed a fist into the comm unit. He turned back to the humans. "See? I did what you wanted."  
The female in charge just stared at him. "Asskicker? Really?"  
He shrugged. "The sergeant thought it was funny."

Johnny Bravo strapped himself into the driver's seat. "Cool! Cup-holders."

The prisoner and the rest of his comrades sat in the cramped confines of the crew section. Johnny turned the APC around and pointed it towards the cluster of buildings highlighted on the head up display.

In back, somebody played air guitar and began singing the chorus of _Highway to Hell._

Johnny brought the APC to a halt outside the gaping maw of the vehicle garage. Inside, ceiling-mounted lights flickered, casting shadows in the corners where anything could be lurking.

"Ten credits says there's a squad of hostiles down the back," he said over the intercom.  
"I'll be in that."  
"Me too."  
"Same here."  
"I'll take a piece of that action."  
"Gambling's against my religion."

Lieutenant Carter hit the door release and climbed painfully from the crew compartment. "Alpha, on me. Bravo and Charlie, cover us."  
Omura nodded at the batarian. "What about him?"  
Kimmers stepped up to the prisoner and said, "I could say this wasn't personal but I'd be lying," and lit him up with her omni-tool's neural shocker, set to extra-crispy. The batarian jerked and collapsed amid thin streamers of smoke.

Alpha moved carefully towards the hangar, barriers overlapping until they were pressed up against the outer wall. Kimmers eased her head around the edge of the doorway until she could see inside the building.

Hard-wearing concrete floor, oil-stained. Racks of tools mounted on the walls. "Looks clear," she murmured. A shot rang out from behind the hydraulic vehicle jack, scoring a groove in her helmet. She pulled back as a fusillade of shots followed the first.

"I guess they didn't buy our little ruse." She held a hand out to her squad. "Grenade me."

Johnny pressed an inferno grenade into her gloved hand.

Kimmers primed the grenade, the unholy spawn of a fragmentation grenade and Molotov cocktail and tossed it towards the source of the gunfire.

A panicked voice shouted "GRENADE!" Two seconds later it exploded, bathing the interior of the vehicle hangar in a hellish glow. Flaming batarians ran screaming, frantically attempting to smother the flames. A half-minute later, all was quiet once more.

Alpha squad quickly swept through the hangar, weapons ready. "Hangar is clear," the lieutenant reported. The other two squads followed, fanning out into the large room. Omura hit the door control and waited as the garage door rattled down, guarding their rear. He hit a second control and they waited as the garage re-pressurised.

In the command bunker, the officer monitoring the garage reported. "Sir, the humans have breached the garage."

The commander growled. "Activate automated defenses."

The marines approached a second door set into the western wall. "This must connect to the rest of the base," Kimmers surmised. Omura crossed to the door controls and worked on an over-ride.

The control panel began flashing then turned a solid red. "Oh shit-" The explosion all but incinerated Omura as he took the brunt of the blast, the shock wave scattering the rest of the unit like skittles.

The air was forced from Mary-Beth's lungs as she slammed into the far wall. She fell onto her hands and knees, breath echoing harshly in her ears. Fighting to remain conscious, she was dimly aware of figures staggering back and forth. One was short an arm, another pressed futilely at a gaping tear in its hardsuit, purplish guts spilling out.

Sanchez stared up at the ceiling. "I can't feel my legs, man. I can't feel my legs."

Johnny reeled back and forth, ears ringing, balance completely shot and tripped over what was left of Sanchez's lower half. "Oh God."

Kimmers rose unsteadily to her feet, chest in agony. With an effort, she hauled herself upright, using a blood-stained wall for support and hit the general frequency. "Ever..." she trailed off, swallowed back bile and tried again. "Everybody sound off." Her voice sounded wrong to her ears and she realised she was on the edge of breaking down.

"Sinclair," Mary-Beth managed to get out, though blackness threatened to overwhelm her. "We need to regroup before they send more troops," she realised.

"Bravo," Johnny said, staring down at Sanchez. Sanchez, he discovered, was dead. A cold part of his mind decided this was the best outcome for all concerned. "Sanchez is gone," he added.

Von Strudel sat slumped against the wall, staring fixedly at the spot where his arm used to be. His hardsuit had sealed off the wound with medi-gel but shock had set in and he decided he was all done. "Mien lieben," he murmured and died.

Private O'Hare found herself next to Private Roberts. The former held the latter's hand and wept as he tried futilely to keep his insides inside. He rolled his head towards O'Hare. "Tell my wife I love her."  
O'Hare shook her head violently. "No. You'll tell her that yourself! Don't you dare die on me!" Roberts smiled, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. "You don't get to order me around, Sammi." Then his eyes slid shut.

Though barely two minutes had elapsed since the explosion, by the time the surviving soldiers had checked in, it felt like aeons had passed.

"Status?" the lieutenant said softly, out of deference for those lost.  
"We're fecked," O'Malley said succinctly.  
"Like hell we are," Bravo answered, resolutely not looking at Sanchez. Or Von Strudel. Or Roberts or Omura. He looked into Mary-Beth's wide blue eyes. "I'm going to have to look into your pretty eyes for a minute or I'm going to lose my mind."

Mary-Beth nodded dumbly and worked her omni-tool, dosing herself with medication designed to counteract the effects of shock.

"We can still do this," PFC Bravo insisted. "They think we're dead. That's the best time to strike."  
O'Hare nodded. "Take the fight to them."  
"I'm in," Mary-Beth added.  
Kimmers looked around at the survivors; each nodded in turn.  
"I'll Riverdance on their miserable corpses," declared O'Malley.

* * *

Aboard the _Shanghai,_ Connors winced as the life-signs of Sanchez, Roberts, Von Strudel and Omura flat-lined. The _Shanghai's_ captain, a portly middle-aged man who resembled a life-sized Russian nesting doll ordered the shuttle made ready for emergency evac.

"Lieutenant Carter reporting in," the comms officer advised the bridge crew.  
"Patch her through, ensign," the captain ordered. His outward appearance was one of utter calm. One never showed fear in front of one's crew.

"Talk to me, Lieutenant," Connors ordered."  
"The batarians rigged an explosive into a door control. We lost Omura, Sanchez, Von Strudel and Roberts. We are pressing on to the command centre."  
"We're prepping a shuttle for evac," Connors said. "We can pull you out."  
"Negative. We've come too far to quit now." A pause. "I won't let their deaths be for nothing, Captain."  
"Understood, Lieutenant. Good luck."

* * *

"Amp check," Kimmers ordered. At this point it would not surprise her at all if one or more of her people required surgery to replace damaged biotic amplifier interfaces but everybody came back green. "Score one for the good guys. All right, form up, overlapping barriers. OOH-RA!"  
"OOH-RA!"

Johnny Bravo and Olafsson forced the door open, holding it for the rest of the squad. Kimmers tossed another grenade through the gap, more screams. Shots rang out from the corridor beyond and biotic barriers flared with each impact as the lieutenant led the way through the door.

Trauma icons flashed red on her HUD as a round punched through her armour. Blood spilled from a wound over her right hip. "Lieutenant!" Mary-Beth cried out and shoved herself in front of her superior, taking the volley of rounds meant for her. Her barriers collapsed and bullets struck her in the chest, stomach and legs.

A red mist descended over Johnny's vision and he launched himself in a biotic charge.

At the far end of the corridor, the batarian corporal thought he was doing pretty well. The doorway the humans were attempting to cross was a natural kill-zone and two of them were down already. Then he blinked and one of them was right in his face, screaming incoherently and committing wholesale slaughter with a shotgun.

Two of the batarian's squad mates were down, one missing his head from the chin up, the other cut in half at the midsection. The corporal attempted to fend the human off, ramming him in the head with his rifle butt and cracking his helmet visor. The human grinned. "You want some of this?" and raised a glowing fist. It was the last thing the batarian saw.

Johnny stood amid the carnage, breathing heavily, covered in alien gore. He registered movement at his feet and shot a crawling batarian through the back of the head. The lieutenant staggered up the corridor towards him, Olafsson and O'Malley supporting her.

"Mary-Beth? Where's Mary-Beth?" He looked past the others to the doorway where O'Hare knelt over a body on the floor. Johnny pushed past the lieutenant and ran.

Mary-Beth couldn't fathom it. Her head up display was a sea of dancing red icons, indicating multiple suit breaches and her vital signs were all over the place. Her heart rate was way up but her blood pressure was falling fast. Somewhere above her, hands reached down, hitting the quick release on her chest piece. "Awww...hell." A voice said from somewhere high above.

O'Hare called down to the rest of the squad. "I need medi-gel! Lots and lots of medi-gel!"

Mary-Beth felt a calmness fall over her and experienced a sensation she'd as yet only read of it books. From a position near the ceiling, she saw her squad mates clustered around her, applying medi-gel to gunshot wounds, staunching the flow of blood and beginning chest compressions.

O'Hare knelt by her head, performing expired air resuscitation as Johnny worked her chest. _If he tries to cop a feel, I'll be really disappointed_ Mary-Beth mused. A white light near the doorway drew her attention. _Oh it's like that, is it?_ A booming voice called out _**Come into the light, my child!**_ Below her, Johnny's hands were slick with blood as he kept up the compressions. How long had he been going? Less than a minute? Ten years? Beside him, O'Hare was simultaneously crying and blowing air into the Mary-Beth's lungs.

 _ **Step into the light!  
** Are you God?  
 **Of course! What do you think I am?  
** I'm having an out of body experience, likely brought on by shock and blood-loss. So I'm guessing an auditory hallucination isn't that great a stretch. Besides, I don't even believe in God.  
 **Ungrateful child! I created the heavens and the earth! I'm the reason you even exist! How dare you say you don't believe in me?  
** Oh please. How can the one deity have created everything?  
 **Because I'm God!  
** What about all the other species?  
 **I created them, too!  
** So, you're the Goddess the asari worship?  
 **Yes!  
** What about these spirits the turians talk about?  
 **That's me as well!  
** Doesn't add up.  
 **Which part?  
** All of it! People believe you made Man in your own image, right?  
 **Yes.  
** If you created Man in your own image and you say you also created the other species, why don't they all look the same?  
 **I like experimenting!  
** Say for the sake of argument I accept that. If you're so good and benevolent, why is there such pain and suffering in the universe?  
 **Oh not THAT again! Listen, it's all part of a grand plan. You wouldn't understand.  
** If I said to somebody, I have a plan to make the universe a better place but it involves mass casualty terror incidents, lone gunmen shooting up schools, lunatics blowing themselves up in YOUR name, children dying of neglect because their worthless parents don't care if they live or die...oh and paedophile priests, they'd tell me to get stuffed. Yet we're expected to just accept the same thing from you?  
 **...Yes?  
** You know what? Even if what you say is true, I want no part of it. I'm getting the hell out of here._

"Come on! Breathe for me, you bitch!" Johnny grunted as he kept up the chest compressions. In a medical drama, somebody would be holding up a watch and calling time of death.

Mary-Beth's eyes flickered open and she half-rose from the floor in a gasping wheeze before falling back, chest rising and falling under its own power.

"Oh thank God," the soldiers clustered around her said as one.  
"Screw God," Mary-Beth whispered and passed out again.

* * *

The _Shanghai's_ medical team rushed to the shuttle, Mary-Beth strapped to a stretcher sealed against vacuum. A forest of wires connected her to a suite of monitoring devices.

Lieutenant Carter watched them go, feeling a lump in her throat. She forced herself to project an aura of calm; there'd be time to fall apart later, assuming she survived. "I want the rest of you on that shuttle," she spoke quietly.

"Nuh-uh."  
"No way."  
"Not happening."  
She glared at them, "I'm giving you an order, dammit!"  
"And ye can court-martial us all later," O'Malley replied.  
"Damn straight," Johnny Bravo added.

"This is mutiny! I'll have you up on charges! I'll..." she trailed off, realising she sounded a bit like an idiot.  
O'Hare offered a strained smile. "I think the words you're looking for are _thank you._ "  
Kimmers swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Let's end this."

They retreated to the relative safety of the vehicle garage, looking everywhere but at the dead. "Take a minute for an energy bar and electrolyte drink." Around her, the others ripped open pockets on their armour and removed foil packets of dubious-tasting energy drinks.

Biotic soldiers burned up several thousand calories of energy over the course of a mission and all of them had been pushing their abilities to the limit. Johnny lifted his helmet visor and ripped the top off an energy bar. He grimaced as he chewed and swallowed. "Tastes like wet cardboard."  
"Have you ever actually eaten wet cardboard?" O'Hare asked.  
Johnny nodded. "Once, for comparison purposes."  
"You're weird."  
"Says the girl who thinks everything is awesome," he shot back.

Kimmers smiled wearily. "That's enough, children." She looked at the faces of her people, looking each in the eye before moving on to the next. Each gave her a nod. "Let's rock."

A diagram mounted on one wall of the garage pointed the way to the main command building. It even featured a You are Here arrow. Kimmers committed the route to memory and led the way out of the garage and down the hallway where they'd almost lost Mary-Beth.

After five minutes of uneventful jogging, they arrived outside a door. **Command Room** was stencilled on the grey metal door. "You ever get the idea the people who design these places think we're all morons?" Johnny asked, looking at the door.

"You ever gotten lost at Arcturus?" Kimmers answered, naming humanity's largest deep space installation. "I spent three hours walking in circles, looking for the ladies' room."

Mindful of the explosion in the garage, Kimmers ordered her team away from the door control and used her omni-tool to over-ride it remotely. The control panel glowed green as the door slid open.

Wreathed in crackling biotic energy, she stepped through the door. "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds," she announced and unleashed a singularity in the centre of the room. Chairs, data-pads and batarians were pulled into the swirling heart of dark energy. Olafsson's warp field intersected with the singularity; a thunderclap rent the air and the room was filled with the smell of ozone and ruptured bowels.

The batarian commander pulled a sidearm with his good hand and launched a counter attack. A mass-lightening biotic field pulled him from the floor, slamming him into the ceiling. A biotic throw tossed him back across the room and he thumped against the wall, bones cracking.

The sensor operator dived beneath his console, scrabbling for the sidearm taped underneath. He came up with the gun in his hands just in time to take a cascade of shockwaves to the face. His head snapped back before flopping against his chest, vertebrae shattered.

The comms officer took two steps towards a weapon locker mounted on the opposite wall before an omni-blade opened him from neck to groin.

The blue-white flickering of barriers faded and died. The only sound was the soft plink of blood dripping from the ceiling to the floor and pained moans from the commanding officer.

Kimmers crossed the room, grabbed him and hauled him upright. "You think this guy's worth anything to the Hegemony?"  
The batarian groaned. "No...more...please."  
"I lost a lot of good people because of you." She tightened her grip on his shoulder, eliciting another moan.  
"Please...I surrender."  
"Did anybody hear that?"  
"Hear what?" Johnny Bravo replied, tapping his shotgun's trigger guard.  
|"I don't know about you, but I'd feel better about shooting him if he went for a weapon," O'Hare said. "Look, I'm all for exacting payback and all but we're Alliance. We hold ourselves to higher standards than these...animals."

Kimmers muttered an oath. "You're right. You," she jerked the commander's arm. "On your feet. We're leaving."

The commander bided his time and, as the humans dragged him through the door of the command room, he half-stumbled into the woman officer, grabbed her sidearm, pressed the muzzle into her side and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing.

The humans gaped at him. "Safety's off, dumbass," the woman said, pulling the weapon from his grasp. "See?" She held up the gun, flicked off the safety catch. Casting a sideways glance at the other female soldier, she said, " _Now_ can I shoot him?"

* * *

The Alliance made several attempts to ransom the surviving batarian soldier back to the Hegemony but every attempt was rebuffed, the Hegemony apparently having little use for soldiers who surrendered to humans.

Instead he was tried, found guilty and sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. When the judge asked if he had anything to say in his defence, he replied, "I was just following orders."

On his third day of incarceration following the verdict, a fellow prisoner stabbed him to death in the showers with a homemade shiv.

Nobody attended the funeral service.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

 **Arcturus Station**

A few days after performing life-saving surgery at Arcturus Station, the surgeon popped in to visit Mary-Beth. "You were very lucky," the surgeon began. "Your heart stopped seven times!" he went on cheerfully, completely oblivious to the rapid beeps from the heart-rate monitor as Mary-Beth began freaking out.

"After the first couple of times, I thought you weren't going to make it but somehow we were able to keep bringing you back! The five minutes later, we were losing you again but somehow you just kept on keeping on!"

"Why are you telling me this?" Mary-Beth managed to ask, voice reduced to a terrified squeak.  
"Oh sorry! My counsellor says I need to talk this stuff out otherwise it all gets bottled up and comes out in _really_ unhealthy ways!"

Mary-Beth stopped freaking out; she began to get mad. "Nobody wants to hear about how they almost died _seven times!_ Get the hell out!"

Mary-Beth's convalescence at Arcturus Station was one of boredom punctuated by bouts of screaming.

She lay in a hospital bed in the medical wing, currently one of two patients, and looked up at the wall mounted vidscreen, flipping through channels. Five thousand plus channels and nothing to watch.

Click. The Gameshow Channel. A human quizmaster asked, "Who was the first human in space?"  
A volus contestant with a John F. Kennedy obsession buzzed in. "JFK?"  
"Incorrect. The correct answer is Yuri Gagarin."  
Still on the history of space travel: "Who was the first human to walk on Earth's moon?"  
The volus again, "JFK?" The other two contestants rolled their eyes.  
"Incorrect. The correct answer is Neil Armstrong."  
"Which former President of the United States of America famously said, _Ich bin ein Berliner?"_

"Come on," Mary-Beth urged the hapless volus, "You _know_ this!"

A pause then the volus buzzed in, "George W. Bush?"  
"Incorrect. The correct answer is JFK."  
"Damn you, Earthclan!"

Click. The Cooking Channel. A krogan in chef's whites: "And now that we've finished stuffing the pyjak, it's time to stuff the varren with the pyjak!"

Click. The Comedy Channel: "What is the deal with those asari head tentacles?"

Click. A batarian spouting anti-human propaganda. Mary-Beth's eyes went wide and she screamed. "Aaahh Aaaah! Aaaaahhhh!"

The squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the floor as a pair of medical personnel rushed into her room from the nurses' station outside.

"What's going on?" one asked. The other took in the sight of the wide-eyed corporal screaming and waving the remote control at the vidscreen and turned to look. "Oh," she said before plucking the remote from the patient's hands and hitting the channel changer.

The Political Channel: Overpaid old white men in suits droning on about fiscal responsibility and the need for everybody to make sacrifices while at the same time they voted in massive pay rises for themselves.

Mary-Beth closed her eyes. "Make it stop." The nurses shrugged and sedated her.

A month after the near-disastrous Alliance raid on the batarian installation, Mary-Beth shuffled slowly up the corridor outside her room, leaning on the wall for support. She needed to get _out_ and not even her half-witted attending physician would sign the discharge papers if she was still bed-ridden. So she forced herself to walk.

Halfway along the corridor, she met another Alliance soldier, coming from a room at the far end. He moved unsteadily on a pair of matte black cybernetic legs. They stopped to chat. "IED?" Mary-Beth guessed, nodding at the legs visible beneath the hem of his hospital gown.

He shook his head. "Varren."  
"Jesus."  
He shrugged. "Yeah. We were assigned to clean out a unit of Blood Pack mercenaries who'd taken control of an eezo processing facility on the edge of Alliance Space."  
"Blood Pack are mostly krogan, right?"  
"Yeah. And vorcha." A sigh. "They love their varren. Four of them came at us. I was able to put two of 'em down but the others..." he trailed off. "What about you?"  
"Batarians," she said and shuddered. The counselling sessions were helping. At least she'd stopped screaming whenever she saw a batarian on the vids.  
"Four-eyed bastards."  
"One of them had a Revenant machine-gun. I guess I'm lucky. They're not terribly accurate on full auto."  
"Where was this at?"  
"Some installation out in the ass-end of nowhere. Some politician looking for re-election decided to Get Tough on Aliens and off we went."  
"I hear that. Well, I need to keep going, break in these legs. Ooh-ra, soldier."  
"Ooh-ra."

* * *

The surviving members of Lieutenant Carter's team approached the aftermath of that bloodbath from a variety of angles.

The team was put on leave until Alliance Command could reassign troops from other units and make up the losses. Johnny Bravo hit a series of clubs and bars, sleeping with a multitude of young women with low self esteem and poor judgement. No matter how many naked women he saw, he still couldn't erase the image of a stricken Corporal Sinclair from his mind.

The lieutenant, intent on learning from her failure, threw herself into a study of major conflicts throughout human history. The number of times the brass had sent young men to die based on flawed intelligence against superior odds was staggering.

After a while, she came to the realisation that beating herself up and second guessing herself would accomplish nothing. All she could do was learn from the past and honour the memories of those lost.

For good measure, she had the names of those who'd died under her watch tattooed across her ribcage.  
"That'll hurt a lot," the tattoo artist warned her.  
"That's the idea."

Witnessing death in so brutal a manner up close and personal made Private O'Hare appreciate the little things in life. She spent a lot of time in open fields, literally smelling the roses.

O'Malley dragged Olafsson, and Corporal Connors to a string of 'Irish Pubs' that were Irish in name only, constantly griping about how "nobody can pour a decent Guinness in this country."

 **Somewhere in the Terminus Systems**

A teacher stood at the front of a classroom, reading aloud from a book of human fairy tales. "...But the third bed was just right." He closed the book, eyeing his students expectantly. "Who can tell me what we can learn from Goldilocks and the Three Bears?" A hand went up in the back of the class. "Yes?"

The young vorcha displayed a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. "Goldilocks trespassed on the three bears' property, and ate all their food. They should have killed and eaten the little bitch!"

The krogan teacher nodded. "Very good. What else?"

Another clawed hand went up. "Yes?"

"Goldilocks successfully infiltrated the three bears' base of operations, successfully stole their food but then let her guard down and fell asleep."

"Exactly!" the krogan said. "Always keep your guard up, that's the lesson we can learn from this story. Class dismissed."

Thirty students, a mixture of krogan and vorcha filed from the classroom. The krogan teacher looked over the results from their last exams. This cohort of trainees was surprisingly intelligent. A pity most of them would be allocated roles as cannon-fodder in Blood Pack units.

From somewhere outside came a muffled explosion, screams, sundry body parts splattering to the ground.

As he began gathering his teaching materials, the firearms instructor wandered in from outside and began banging his head against the wall.  
"Rough day?" the first teacher guessed.

The second krogan instructor turned from the dented wall. "They're _idiots_. Even by vorcha standards. Sure, I knew going in at least one of them would accidentally shoot himself but... _gahhhI"_ Again he beat his head against the wall, deepening an already impressive indentation.

"I thought it might motivate them to perform better if I let them train with the heavy artillery."  
"So _that's_ what that explosion was."

"Yeah. Even inbred humans know not to point the business end of a loaded grenade launcher at their own face!"

The first krogan nodded sympathetically. "See, this is why we're losing contracts to the Blue Suns and Eclipse – people don't trust the Blood Pack with 'delicate' situations."

The firearms instructor nodded ruefully. "Any idiot can drop an asteroid on a civilian habitat but what good is an impact crater to anybody? These days, people want to wipe out a colony and still be able to take over the infrastructure themselves."

"You have to respect the Blue Suns, though," the first instructor said. "They've been around a long time. Those Eclipse pyjaks though?"  
"I hear you. Bunch of limp-wristed girly men sending mechs to do the fighting for them."

They both turned towards the classroom door as a heavy metallic thud followed a terrified screech. The two krogan looked at each oher. "What now?" they said in unison.

In the corridor outside the classroom, a group of vorcha stood in a loose semi circle around a fallen snackfood vending machine. A clawed pair of hands was all that was visible of the vorcha lying crushed beneath. An expanding pool of blood crept out from beneath the vending machine.

"Let me guess," the firearms instructor began. "The machine ate his credits but didn't drop the candy bar so he started shaking it, despite the sign _clearly_ warning against shaking the machine and it fell on him?"

The vorcha shuffled their feet back and forth on the tiled floor but said nothing.

"I need something to kill," the firearms instructor muttered.

 **Arcturus Station**

While Mary-Beth was recovering, Captain Connors set about filling the slots in the roster and soon discovered a problem – word had gotten around the Alliance grapevine that a transfer to a certain all biotic unit was a death sentence and people were less than eager about filing transfer papers.

Those few that did show an interest either weren't smart enough to be fully cognizant of the risks, too green to have any choice in the matter or felt they had something to prove either to themselves or others.

Eventually the captain settled on four fair to middling troops and one surprisingly excellent soldier and the transfers went ahead.

Johnny Bravo was idly flipping through channels in one of Arcturus Station's rec areas. "Crap, crap, crap, worse than crap, God that makes my head hurt it's so crap."  
"You know what really pisses me off?" Private O'Hare asked the room at large. "People who complain about the quality of programming on the vids...yet continue to watch the vids!"

"I hear that," Olafsson replied, studying his hand of cards. He shot O'Hare a glance. He was pretty sure she was bluffing and threw more credits on the pile. "Call and raise."

O'Hare grinned triumphantly and showed her hand. "Full house! Awesome!"

"Ah hell!" Olafsson threw his cards down in disgust as O'Hare gathered up the credits. "Come to mama."

"Lucky thing you're not playing strip poker," the LT commented as she gave O'Hare a high five.

The door to the rec area slid open and Captain Connors stepped through, along with five other soldiers. "OFFICER ON DECK!" the lieutenant shouted and stood at attention.

Johnny jerked and fell off his chair, awkwardly picked himself up and came to attention.

"Damn, LT."

"At ease," the captain said. Then, "These are your new squad mates. I trust you'll make them all welcome."

Johnny eyed the group of newcomers. Four men in their early twenties, one chick. Tall, white-blond hair, icy blue eyes. Skin like porcelain. Expression of utter disdain on her face. Johnny was in love.

"Johnny?" One of the men asked. Johnny looked past the girl. "Joey?" he replied, stepping forward.  
"Johnny!"  
"Joey!"  
"JOHNNY"  
"JOEY!"

The two tall, muscle bound marines ran to meet in each other in the centre of the room and enveloped each other in back slapping bear hugs.

"What just happened?" O'Hare asked, watching on as the men bounced up and down, high-fiving and chest bumping each other.

The tall blonde woman spoke for the first time in a Russian accent. "Ugh, you Americans are so touchy-feely."

Suppressing a smile, Captain Connors said, "I see PFC Valentine and PFC Bravo already know each other."

Grinning, Johnny and Joey stood with their arms slung around one another's shoulders. "Joey and I went through basic training together."

"My God..." Lieutenant Carter breathed. "There's _two_ of them."

Connors made the introductions, starting with the Russian ice queen. "Corporal Elena Kirova. Top of her class, proficient in omni-tools and tech armour. Bravo Squad leader."

Kirova nodded stiffly at the others as Connors went on. "Privates Valentine, Muldoon, Walker and Cooper."

A chorus of "How _you_ doin'?" and "Pleased to meet yous" went around the room. Carter noted that, while the private soldiers quickly got together with the rest of her people, Kirova held herself apart.

The lieutenant shook hands with each of the newcomers, starting with Joey Valentine and ending with Elena Kirova. "Corporal, welcome to the unit."

Kirova nodded wordlessly. _Probably not a people person_ the lieutenant guessed and left her to it.

Joey Valentine swaggered to Kirova. "So, you're Russian, huh?"  
"Da."  
"How's that working for you?"

Kirova merely turned on her heel and walked from the room.

"Smooth, Joey, real smooth," Johnny Bravo observed. "She's totally out of your league."  
"No," Joey replied, "I like a challenge. Besides, I saw the way you were eyeing her off. You just want me to back off so _you_ can move in on her."  
"Well, yeah there's that, too."  
"You're both wasting your time," Samantha O'Hare opined. "Neither of you lunks has a chance."  
"Oooh, hello, sweetheart," Joey said, waggling his eyebrows. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."  
"Don't even try, _sweetheart."_ O'Hare answered coolly.  
One of the other soldiers noticed the deck of cards on the table. "Who's up for strip poker?"

 **SSV Shanghai**

Corporal Mary-Beth Sinclair strode through the docking arm connecting the cruiser _Shanghai_ to Arcturus Station, duffel bag swinging from her right hand and smiled a face-breaking smile.

She was finally out of the infirmary, cleared for combat operations and couldn't wait to see her squad mates again. She came to the end of the docking arm and hit the door control. When the hatch at the end of the docking arm hissed open, she stepped into the airlock between the docking arm and the _Shanghai_ itself and waited for it to cycle.

The final hatch opened and she stepped aboard, breathing deep through her nostrils, relishing the metallic quality of the recycled air. "Ah," she sighed. "Smells like Alliance."

She nodded greetings at the Alliance Navy personnel and headed to the crew quarters. Though it wasn't a pleasure ship, a cruiser-class vessel like the _Shanghai_ was roomy enough that the Navy crew and marines slept in bunks rather than coffin-like sleeper pods like those found on smaller frigate-class vessels.

Before she arrived at her assigned bunk however, a call came over the ship-wide PA system. "Corporal Sinclair to the shuttle bay. Corporal Sinclair to the shuttle bay. That is all."

Shrugging, she rode the elevator down to the shuttle bay and stepped out into a darkness alleviated only by the red glow of emergency lights. "The hell?" After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she took a tentative step forward, hand not holding the duffel bag probing the air in front of her. "Hello?" she called out. No answer. Mary-Beth tilted her head to the side as something shifted minutely on the deck. Teeth bared in an unconscious snarl, she turned in that direction.

"SURPRISE!" her squad mates shouted as the lights came up, amid explosions from party poppers and spools of brightly coloured streamers. "Gaaah!" she screamed as O'Hare and Johnny Bravo enveloped her in hugs.

A large banner hung from the ceiling – WELCOME BACK MARY-BETH

"You bastards!" she said, simultaneously shoving them back and smiling despite herself. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."  
"It was the LT's idea," Johnny said.  
"Is there cake?" Mary-Beth asked. "There'd better be cake."

 **Somewhere in the Terminus Systems**

"No, you don't get to dictate terms, human," the krogan boss of the local Blood Pack rumbled. As the oldest and most experienced in the sector, only he was allowed to conduct contract negotiations. In fact, he was the only one allowed near the comm at all; nobody else could be trusted to transact business without losing their temper and threatening to rip peoples' heads off and shit down their neck.

The old krogan, eight centuries to his name, eyed the human displayed on the vidscreen. Scrawny looking, he could almost smell the anxiety even over the comm. "You've only come to the Blood Pack out of desperation and because you can't afford the Blue Suns' fees." He smiled a fang-filled smile. "Tell me I'm wrong," he invited.

The human tried talking tough. "I expect results, krogan. I want your forces planet-side within thirty-six hours."  
"You'll have my forces in twenty-four hours," the krogan countered. "But for that, we're talking our Deluxe Package. It's worth the extra ten thousand credits."  
"That's highway robbery!" the human protested.  
The krogan shook his head. "No, _robbery_ is when I deploy my forces to your location and _rob_ you. And don't think bouncing your signal through those hundred and fifty comm buoys is enough to stop my techs tracing the signal."  
The human looked close to passing out. Sweat trickled from his hairline. "You have a deal. Wiring the payment now."  
The krogan smiled again. "Pleasure doing business with you. You have a pleasant day, now."

The krogan rose from his desk, crossed the room to an ornate bar taken as salvage from a captured turian warship and poured himself a generous glass of ryncol. He downed the contents in a single gulp and keyed the comm.

"Sir?" the chief instructor answered.  
"I've secured a contract. I want all available forces ready to go this time tomorrow."  
A pause. "They're still in training."  
"Look, you and I both know this 'fight smarter not harder' push won't work in the long term. Our strength has always been crushing the enemy with overwhelming force and pissing on their graves."  
"I suppose. What's the resistance?"  
"Eclipse."  
"Those bastards!"  
"I thought that might fire you up. Get it done."

 **Virmire**

"I hadn't expected to be back _here,"_ Major Kirrahe commented as he led his squad from the shuttle. "Especially not after we detonated that nuke at Saren's cloning facility."  
Commander Rentola nodded. "The universe has a sense of humour. We're _sure_ the intelligence is accurate? Because that last time-"

Kirrahe slashed his hand through the air, cutting off his subordinate. "We don't talk about last time, Rentola! Besides, I've received confirmation from Sur'Kesh. The intel is solid. Somebody on this forsaken rock is developing biological weapons."

"You have to admire the audacity..." Kirrahe mused. "Nobody would think to come back here after Shepard turned almost half the world into a radioactive wasteland. It's the perfect cover."  
"Yes, about that _radioactive wasteland,"_ Rentola said.  
"We've been over this," Kirrahe replied. "As long as we stay in our suits, we're perfectly fine."  
"Now I know how it feels to be quarian," Rentola muttered, plucking the suit away from his cloaca.

The two salarian STG veterans stopped to observe the troops establishing temporary barracks, power grids and communications towers. On this hemisphere, at least, Virmire was the same blue and green jewel they remembered from their last visit. The _other_ hemisphere was a different story and radioactive fallout from ground zero had blasted into the stratosphere and made its way around the whole planet.

Sensing Rentola's anxiety, Kirrahe said, "Don't worry. I won't wait until I've lost three quarters of the men. I've _already_ called the Alliance for backup."  
"Oh, good." A pause, then, "How many ships are they sending?"  
"Just one. A cruiser. I'm told their marines are very good."  
"Wonderful."

 **SSV Shanghai**

"They're sending us _where?"_ Joey Valentine's mouth gaped like a landed fish's.  
"Virmire," the LT repeated. Having just gotten word from Captain Connors who'd gotten it from the _Shanghai's_ captain who'd gotten it from Fifth Fleet HQ, she was still processing it herself.  
"The same Virmire where Commander Shepard _detonated a nuke?"_ Valentine's voice rose an octave on 'nuke.'  
Johnny Bravo slapped his friend on the shoulder. "Chill out, man. It'll be cool."  
Joey glared at him. "How do you figure that?"  
"There's this city on Earth, Pripyat? Place is a ghost town after this nuclear plant went into meltdown. People take tours there, can you believe it?"  
"They didn't do the tours until almost _thirty years_ after the meltdown!" Valentine shot back. "We're all gonna die of radiation sickness, man, I just know it!"  
"Ugh," Elena Kirova grunted. "Pansies."  
"Oh, so I guess _you're_ not worried about all your hair falling out and puking out your insides?" Valentine challenged.  
"Nyet. You want to know why?"

Valentine spread his arms to encompass the squad. "Enlighten us."  
"Anti-radiation medication for a start, hardsuits sealed against airborne fallout. Is not like we are settling down and building new colony, no?"  
Johnny Bravo nodded. "She has a point, dude."

The LT nodded. "We have our orders. We rendezvous with the STG team and provide necessary support. Otherwise, we're observers." She turned to the team medic "Sinclair, co-ordinate with the _Shanghai's_ medical team, make sure we have enough meds to counter radiation sickness."  
Mary-Beth snapped off a salute. "On it."

The captain of the _Shanghai_ spoke over the ship-wide comm circuit. "All hands, we are casting off from Arcturus, making way for the mass relay. ETA three hours. Godspeed, ladies and gentlemen."


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

 **Virmire**

"Do you ever wonder about the ethics of our research?" the white-coated salarian asked his colleague. His colleague also wore a white coat but was human and female. The salarian had overheard the human males on staff refer to her as _hot, damn hot, smoking hot_ and _I'd crawl over broken glass just to watch her have a shower_.

Not being human, the salarian was immune to his colleague's supposed charms and thought she lacked a little thing called 'empathy.'

"No, why?" she spoke matter of factly, voice neutral. The only time she showed any emotion was when they reviewed lab results. "Is something troubling you?"

"Well...we're working on creating a weaponised version of an extremely virulent contagion with an exceedingly high mortality rate...for money."

The woman raised a carefully shaped eyebrow. "You object to getting paid?"

The salarian fought to keep his voice level. "I _object_ to the use of my research to _kill people!"_

"It's a little late to find a conscience, don't you think? Besides, _we_ won't be the ones using this contagion, our clients will."

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people? Is _that_ how you justify it?" the salarian shot back.

The woman shrugged and turned back to her work, ignoring him and ending the discussion.

* * *

Sergeant Joe Jackson of the Eclipse led a squad on patrol through Virmire's undergrowth. Joe had served with the Eclipse for almost four years, having joined the mercenary company after a dishonourable discharge from the Alliance Marine Corps.

So what if he was selling military grade weapons and armour to black marketeers? It was a victimless crime. Hell _everybody_ who served in the supply corps was in on it. He'd just been unlucky enough to get caught. Also, being found in bed with his CO's wife hadn't helped matters, either.

As he pushed his way through the leaves of large fern-like plants and waved away insect species the size of pigeons, his helmet pickups transmitted something weird into his earpiece. Joe came to a halt, fist raised. His troops fell in behind him, scoping the area.

 _Vorcha, vorcha, vor-CHA! Vorcha, vorcha, vor-CHA!_

The rhythmic chanting came from a short distance ahead. Cautiously, Joe edged forward in a low crouch, men fanning out behind him. Approximately fifty metres ahead, a conga line of vorcha troops wearing Blood Pack colours danced from the trees to his left, crossed a narrow stream and conga'd into the trees on his right, still chanting. _Vorcha, vorcha, vor-Cha!_

"What. The. Hell?" Joe breathed.

"It could be a distraction," his second noted.

"I don't think vorcha are that smart," a third noted.

"Sarge," said a fourth, "Shouldn't we be shooting them?"

"Works for me," Joe agreed, bringing his assault rifle to his shoulder and thumbing a round into the under-barrel 40mm grenade launcher. "Light 'em up."

The vorcha conga line was still chanting when the first high explosive round went off. " _Vorcha, vorcha, vor-Cha! Vorcha, vorch-Aaaaaaaa!"_ Some vorcha ran for the trees to either side of the stream and were cut down in seconds, others turned to fight. "Eclipse!" the vorcha in charge screeched. "Kill them!"

Several seconds later, the lead vorcha realised none of the others were following him and he too was shot down.

When silence reigned once more and with the stream ran with vorcha blood, Joe keyed the command frequency. "Echo Squad reporting in, come back."

"Go ahead, Echo. SITREP?"

"We just took out a unit of vorcha, estimate platoon strength. We can confirm Blood Pack presence in the area, over."

"Roger, continue your patrol Echo."

"Echo is returning to patrol, over and out."

Joe turned to his squad. "So, we have some scientists working on some very illegal shit up in the labs and it looks like somebody hired the Blood Pack to put a stop to it. That or take the research for themselves."

"Sarge..." one of his men said, looking down at a dancing red dot on his breastplate.

"Find cover!" Joe shouted as unseen snipers began shooting.

A short distance deeper inside the trees, a four man STG team was _also_ on patrol and by mere happenstance, bore witness to first, a vorcha conga line and second, the arrival of Eclipse mercenaries who dealt with the vorcha in so efficient a manner, it was almost salarian.

Now, the leader of the STG team was determined to find out what events were conspiring to bring two of the most notorious merc groups to the same place at the same time. That meant taking a prisoner. Preferably the senior officer of the Eclipse mercs. "Aim carefully men," the salarian said quietly. "I'd like to avoid accidentally killing the sergeant and capturing the private like last time."

"Don't remind me," the solider to his left groaned.

The Eclipse mercenaries fell back in good order, firing into the trees and forcing the STG team to break off their attack.

* * *

Lieutenant Carter led her troops at a leisurely jog toward the main STG staging area while their shuttle departed for the _Shanghai_. Unlike their last shuttle drop, nobody was shooting at them; Carter considered that much a victory itself.

Upon making landfall on Virmire a nervous Private Valentine sampled the background radiation with his omni-tool and to his relief found it only slightly above normal levels. He followed the LT as she led the team the salarians' command tent.

"I'm looking for Major Kirrahe," Carter informed the salarians flanking the entrance. One nodded and slipped inside. A minute later he returned, senior officer in tow.

Carter snapped off a parade ground salute and came to attention. "First Lieutenant Carter of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps reporting as ordered!"

Commander Rentola shot Kirrahe a worried glance and asked the human officer, "You're all the Alliance sent?"

"That's right."

Rentola turned to face Kirrahe. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"  
"Denied."  
Rentola pressed on regardless. "I have a bad feeling about this, sir."  
Kirrahe pointed back at the tent behind them. "Return to your duties, Commander. I'll brief our guests."  
After a moment Rentola saluted and left.

"Lieutenant Carter, I'm Major Kirrahe, Third Infiltration Regiment, STG." He spread his arms wide, encompassing the area. "Welcome to Virmire."

"Love what you've done with the place," Johnny Bravo deadpanned.

"I'll cut to the chase, as you humans say, Lieutenant," Kirrahe went on, ignoring the private. "We have intel confirming the existence of a biological weapons research facility."

"Do we know what kind of biological weapon?" the lieutenant asked.

"We intercepted some data packets as they were beamed to an in-system comm buoy," Kirrahe replied. "It looks like a mix of what's called the Black Death and Ebola. Also necrotising fascitis."

"Flesh eating bug?"

From behind the lieutenant came a chorus of muttered obscenities.

Kirrahe nodded. "Our thoughts exactly."

"Well that's just great," Carter muttered to herself. To Kirrahe: "I assume you have a plan?"

"Indeed." The salarian turned and led the marines into the command bunker and over to a holographic display table.

The salarian major punched up a rotating 3D display of the target complex. "As you can see, the structure is heavily fortified. However, our scouts and drones have located areas of weakness. Here," he indicated a communications tower enabling both off world transmissions and local comms. "Here," a power substation. "And finally here." An array of sensors.

"Nice," Carter nodded. "Cut off communications, blind them and kill the power."

Kirrahe nodded "I recommend splitting your force into three groups and hitting these targets simultaneously. When their forces are in disarray, my troops will infiltrate the labs, neutralise internal security and use incendiaries to burn out the labs."

One of the STG troops guarding the door stuck his head in. "Major, scouts returning."

A salarian squad leader entered the room, eyed the humans before saluting the major. "Sir, we engaged a unit of Eclipse mercenaries but were forced to break off. We can also confirm the presence of the Blood Pack."

"Blood Pack _and_ Eclipse?" Kirrahe replied. "What could the krogan and vorcha want?"

"Get their hands on the bio-weapon?" the human officer suggested.

Kirrahe shook his head. "Unlikely. Krogan regard such weapons as cowardly. They _could_ be in the employ of another party who desires the weapon however."

From the back of the room, Private Valentine spoke up. "I don't suppose we could just hang back and let them kill each other?"

Carter shook her head. "Tempting but I don't want to sit around and give the lab time to finish work on their weapon." To Kirrahe she asked, "Any intel on just _how_ close to completion they are?"

Kirrahe shook his head. "Unknown at this time. I recommend haste, Lieutenant."

Carter nodded and turned to her squad leaders. "Bravo Squad, you're hitting the comms tower. Charlie, the sensor array. Alpha will cut the power. Questions?" Her squad leaders shook their heads. "Ooh Ra!"

Behind her, Kirrahe was in the midst of a long-winded speech to his men, repeating the phrase 'hold the line' ten times in five minutes.

* * *

"So my cousin Bob is totally obsessed with this amateur porn site on the extranet."

"Which one? There's like _thousands_ of them."

"I dunno, Dirty Slutty Girls Next Door or something. Anyway, I said to him, you know all those orgasms are totally faked, right?"

"What'd he say?"

"He flat out denies they're faked. But only because the people running the site _say_ they aren't faked. But they would, wouldn't they? I mean, they're not gonna charge you thirty credits a month and say oh by the way, the girls are faking everything. Who'd pay for that?"

"I dunno. Some people have really weird fetishes and some of those faked orgasms are even more convincing than the real thing. Uhhh not that I know."

"Yeah right."

Lieutenant Carter lowered the binoculars and rolled her eyes. The miniature directional mike integrated into the binocs picked up every word the Eclipse mercs lounging outside the power station were saying. "Men are pigs." she shot a glance at Private Bravo. "Just saying."

"That's incredibly sexist, Ma'am. Last shore leave, this girl stood me up. Should I then accuse _all_ women of being bitches just because _one_ stood me up?"

"He has a point, LT," Private Cooper nodded. "It's the same thing with male strippers. Women think it's perfectly fine to treat them like slabs of meat but call men sexist pigs for treating women strippers the exact same way."

Mary-Beth rolled her eyes. "As fascinating as this discussion is, I think we should focus on the objective."

The lieutenant nodded. "Right." She keyed her comm, contacting her squads and patching in the salarians. "Alpha squad in position." A second later she received confirmation from Bravo and Charlie squads.

Kirrahe replied. "Excellent. Fire at will."

"So, I gotta ask," one of the Eclipse troopers said. "Real or implants?"

"Huh?"

"Boobs, man. You know, breasts, tits, knockers, jugs, ta-tas, funbags..."

"You have serious issues, dude." the second trooper paused. "Did you see that? Over by those trees?"

"See what-?" A flare of blue-white energy encasing a humanoid form surged from the tree line and blasted into the two troopers on guard duty, knocking them senseless. Johnny Bravo stood over the stunned and hapless mercenaries and levelled his shotgun. "You two are a disgrace to our gender," he said and shot them both through the head.

Elsewhere explosions and distant alarms heralded the assault on the other targets. The doors of the power substation hissed open, revealing a squad of heavily armoured Eclipse mercs. Standing shoulder to shoulder as they were, they offered the perfect target for the lieutenant's singularity.

Limbs flailed as the mass effect field yanked the men off their feet and slammed them together. Johnny Bravo back-pedalled as he unleashed a cascade of biotic shockwaves. The clashing fields of dark energy exploded, painting the walls with blood and tossing body parts dozens of metres.

The rest of Alpha squad dashed from the trees and assembled by the doors. "Nice work. Let's get in there and set the charges."

The squad of Alliance soldiers entered the large pre-fab structure, finding little more than a row of generators and control panels as well as a trestle table and bench seats. Arrayed along one wall were charging stations for Loki security mechs. Responding to the intrusion, the mechs powered up and advanced, raising pistols.

"Please rethink your aggressive actions," one said as it aggressively fired upon the marines. Mary-Beth pulled her sidearm, and figuring now was as good a time as any to hone her marksmanship, sighted on the head of the nearest mech and fired two shots.

The mech's head snapped back before popping apart in a shower of metal and sparks. The crippled machine shook violently as its power source overloaded and detonated. The blast set off a chain reaction and the next closest mech erupted, triggering a core overload in the next one along.

The marines looked on in amazement as each mech set off a secondary explosion in its neighbour until all that remained was smoking debris. Johnny Bravo turned to Mary-Beth. "Damn, girl."

Mary-Beth twirled the sidearm before holstering it. "Gotta love cheap manufacturing."

The lieutenant turned to Private Cooper. "Rig the explosives."

"On it, Ma'am."

As the soldier placed demo charges on each generator, the command frequency buzzed with an incoming transmission. "This is Kirrahe to all squads, reinforcements are en route from the main building, be ready."

The lieutenant nodded. "Acknowledged." She pointed first to Mary-Beth and Johnny Bravo then to the door. They nodded and moved to cover the entrance.

To Cooper she asked, "Status?"

"Almost done...there!" His fingers danced over his omni-tool, transmitting the codes to detonate the charges to the rest of the squad. "In case I die in the next few minutes."

"Yeah, we'll try to avoid that," the lieutenant replied.

By the door, Mary-Beth and Johnny Bravo watched as heavily armed squads of Eclipse mercenaries took up positions in the trees across from the bunker. "We have company," Johnny reported over the comm. "I mark at least five squads."

Mary-Beth nodded. "Confirmed."

The other two marines joined them at the door. "Focus on the guys with heavy weapons."

An Eclipse soldier raised a rocket launcher to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Inside the bunker, the marines wordlessly formed overlapping barriers; the explosion sent chunks of the outer wall flying but left them unharmed.  
"OK, now it's our turn. Hit 'em with everything you've got!"

For a little of ninety seconds, the jungle was alive with the sound of assault rifle fire, explosions from 40mm grenade launcher fire and several more from clashing fields of dark energy. Then silence broken only by the _plink_ blood dripping from the tree canopy to land on eviscerated corpses.

Lieutenant Carter lowered her arms, willing her barrier to collapse and turned to her squad. No casualties and no injuries. She hit up the command frequency. "Carter to Kirrahe, what's your status, over?"

Sounds of gunfire over the comm, along with garbled shouts and explosions. "We have entered the main complex, facing moderate resistance."

"Do you require back up? I can redeploy my squads."

"Negative, maintain your positions. Do what you can to draw out the guards. We'll handle the rest."

"Roger. Out." To her squad she said, "Let's get to minimum safe distance and blow the charges."

"Not so fast, human!" came a deep rumbling voice. The Alliance marines turned to see a large krogan lead a pack of vorcha from the trees, sloshing through the remains of the mercs.  
"Ah crap."

The krogan stood almost three metres tall, hulking over its lackeys, carrying an auto loading shotgun in each massive clawed hand. "I have to admit, you did quite a number on these Eclipse pyjaks. Let's see how you handle a _real_ fight!"

The vorcha charged in, spraying the area with a high volume of poorly aimed full auto gunfire, hitting precisely nothing. As they stopped to reload, the humans opened up on them, gunning them down in seconds.

"I'm sorry, did somebody say something about a real fight?" asked Johnny Bravo.

The krogan roared a battle cry and lumbered forward, raising both weapons. The left shotgun boomed, collapsing Johnny's barrier. The right shotgun followed, and his armour's kinetic barrier likewise collapsed. Left, again. Johnny staggered as the shotgun blast sent fragments of ablative armour flying into the trees.

With every shot, the krogan came nearer, deliberately targeting Johnny, ignoring everything else. A dangerous mistake. Mary-Beth faded back and circled around the alien and came at him from behind.

The krogan fired again and Johnny slumped to the blood stained earth, hardsuit breached in multiple places, blood spilling down his side to mingle with that already spilled. Lieutenant Carter and Private Cooper moved to cover him and the krogan turned briefly upon them, unloading point-blank shotgun blasts that staggered them.

When the humans lay before him, broken and bleeding, the krogan paused to survey his handiwork. Victory was nigh and he stopped to gloat, reloading his weapons. "Any last words?" he rumbled.

"Yeah," Johnny gasped. "Look behind you."

The krogan laughed, sending small animals scampering for cover. "Do you seriously expect me to fall for that?"

The whole time the krogan was advancing on her squadmates, Mary-Beth was coldly assessing the situation. The krogan was too heavily armoured for her to drop him with her rifle and a close quarters encounter was suicide; that left biotics. Mary-Beth raised her right arm, contracting her muscles in a specific sequence, and triggered her bio-amp to generate a warp field. The krogan roared in surprise and pain as the destructive mass effect field tore through his armoured carapace. Even as he turned to face his new attacker, she threw up her other arm, 'throwing' the krogan back. He hit the ground hard but immediately surged to his feet and charged. "I AM KROGAN!" he roared.

Mary-Beth had time to think _fuck me_ before the half-ton alien bore down on her, wrapping massive arms around her and squeezing the life out of her. With her arms pinned against her sides, Mary-Beth was unable to trigger her biotics. In desperation she pulled her head back as far as she was able, tucking it between her shoulders and slammed her helmeted head into the krogan's face.

Even through her helmet, it hurt and made no appreciable difference to her predicament. The alien squeezed harder and she screamed as a rib cracked. Then another. Behind the krogan, her injured squadmates were climbing to their feet and staggering towards her.

"Let. Her. Go." the lieutenant said, each word a pained exhalation. She raised her sidearm and emptied the thermal clip into the back of their assailant.

The krogan jerked as each shot punched through already weakened armour and pulped vital organs. Mary-Beth head butted him again. Trauma icons on her HUD informed her three ribs were fractured and one of them had pierced her left lung. _Out-standing_ she had time to think before blackness consumed her.

Three injured marines stood over the corpse of a krogan, taking turns to unload a shotgun into its head. Only when nothing recognisable as a head remained did they stop firing. "You think he's dead now?" Cooper enquired.

"I've heard stories of these bastards getting up after having buildings fall on them," Johnny Bravo replied with a pained grunt. His hard-suit support systems had dosed him with medi-gel and pain killers and he swayed unsteadily on his feet. A line of pink elephants danced across his field of vision.

Lieutenant Carter stepped to where Mary-Beth lay collapsed a few feet away and used her omni-tool to interface with the other marine's hardsuit computer. "She's hurt bad," she reported. "God _damn_ it!" she added feelingly. She opened a comm line to the _Shanghai._ "Ground team to _Shanghai."  
_  
"Go ahead, ground team."

"We require a medevac at my co-ordinates."

A pause. Then "Is it Corporal Sinclair again? Cause we've been taking bets up here and if it's her, I win the pot!"

"GET ME AN EVAC SHUTTLE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!"

Mary-Beth swam upwards out of the black as the medics loaded her into the drop-shuttle. "Is this hell?" she asked with a pained gasp.

"No, just Virmire," the lieutenant answered, gently squeezing her hand. "Welcome back, Corporal."

"Hey, Mary-Beth," Johnny Bravo put in as the medical team tended their wounds. "Thanks for the assist back there."

"Couldn't let some over-sized lizard kill the squad mascot, could I?" she replied, voice trailing off as a medic injected a sedative.

"Thanks. I think." Johnny said as the shuttle lifted off.

As the Kodiak shuttle ascended, an explosion tore apart the power station.

 **SSV Shanghai, in orbit over Virmire**

The cruiser's medbay was a hive of activity. Medical staff moved quickly between the beds upon which lay four injured marines. Of the four, Johnny Bravo and Mary-Beth Sinclair clearly suffered the brunt of the krogan assault.

The former's hardsuit was breached in several places and he required surgery for gunshot wounds. Mary-Beth's fractured ribs and punctured lung presented the medical team with a different set of challenges.

Of the remaining soldiers, Lieutenant Carter and Private Cooper suffered bruising from where their armour had absorbed the shotgun blasts.

The cruiser's doctor stood over Mary-Beth, gloved hands raised. "We meet again, Corporal," he said jovially. The corporal just stared back at him. "Oh do try to see the upside. At least this time you aren't clinically dead!"

"I'm going to kill you," she whispered.

"That's the spirit!"

Some hours later, the medbay was empty but for two marines, Carter and Cooper having been cleared for light duties.  
"I'm bored," Johnny Bravo said. He lay in the bed, chest swathed in bandages, sheet pulled up to his waist. "Wanna play I Spy?"  
Mary-Beth looked up from a game of Galaxy of Fantasy on her omni-tool. She was logged into the game servers via the cruiser's extranet connection and hunting down some level fifty punk who thought it was hilarious to player-kill level one noobs.

"What are you, five years old?"

She'd shuffled into the women's rest room on the crew deck and got a good look at the damage. Wished she hadn't. Her torso was a horror-show of dark blue-black bruising and her ribs throbbed mercilessly.

"Come on!" Johnny persisted. "It'll be fun!"

Mary-Beth rolled her eyes and shut down her omni-tool. The punk was trolling other players generally and her in particular. Because she was a girl and he felt threatened.  
"All right, fine!"

"Great! I'll go first. I spy with my little eye...something beginning with M."

A sigh. "Medbay?"

"No."

She pointed to the wall. "Medi-gel dispenser?"

"Nope."

She was spared the indignity of continuing to play a children's game when the medbay door hissed open, admitting a nurse.

Johnny Bravo looked over as the door opened. The nurse was maybe five-five and on the curvy side. Wavy auburn hair, freckles. Big blue eyes. Hello gorgeous, he thought. Then realised he'd actually spoken aloud.

The nurse smiled. "It's the pain meds, lowers inhibitions, makes people just blurt out whatever they're thinking."

Johnny's gaze followed the nurse as she crossed the deck to his bedside and began checking his vitals. "Does the carpet match the drapes?"

"Jesus, Bravo!" Mary-Beth snapped from her bed. "God! Men are all the same!"

The nurse chuckled. "It's fine, really. I've heard a lot worse."

"You don't think maybe you have a right to work and _not_ be sexually harassed by idiots?" the corporal replied. Before the nurse could respond, Mary-Beth rounded on Johnny. "And she's _clearly_ a real redhead! Just look at that skin! And for future reference and so you don't get slapped with a restraining order, if the hair matches the eyebrows, it's a safe bet everything else does!"

Johnny blinked at the other woman. Then smiled and said, "You're cute when you're angry."

Mary-Beth threw back the sheet, and with a pained grimace, began levering herself from the bed. A little voice inside her head whispered _Kill._ Before she could swing her feet to the floor, the cruiser's captain voice crackled over the ship-wide comm. "Attention all hands, we have received a communication from the salarians; they have completed their objectives with minimal casualties. Major Kirrahe wanted me to pass on his thanks to our marine detachment and wishes those injured a speedy recovery."

Mary-Beth blinked, the spell broken. "Well, that's nice of him," she said and climbed back into bed.


End file.
